Reply #134: exactly [View All]

[iverglas]

and thanks, of course. ;)

They've refined intentional misinterpretation into an art form.

A while back I had a good article bookmarked about the discourse of the right wing, but the danged thing has disappeared. It was about mail the author had got about his opinion on something or other, consisting of things like

So, you're saying ...? (google that one)

followed by things he had of course never said. In the same class, we have things like

Why do you ...? How can you ...?

when of course you never did. (Concurrently, the question mark has become the body armour of the coward, the one who won't come right out and state the false representation of what someone else said.) And the sad thing is that this technique is seen hereabouts a hundred times a day. If I had a loonie for every time it's been used against me in my time here, I'd be rich.

Aha, here's a model:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/13/141448/171
"How conservatives argue"

Divert, distract, mislead ("misinterpret"? too generous! -- "intentional misinterpretation" of course, yes). How much more effective than addressing. In the mouth of the demagogue, anyhow. It must work, at least with some of the people some of the time.

Sometimes, I think that it happens because some people are so eager to read something they can use as a springboard for spewing their own sacred opinion that they just don't pay attention to what they are actually reading. Sometimes.